


This Is How It Happens (We Are Born to Burn)

by Jaded



Series: Mutual Pining in Space [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Being a damn grown-up and trying to respect an existing relationship, Coping, F/M, Jealousy, Mutual Pining, Prompt Fill, but not being happy about it, but still doing it anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 14:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10336866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaded/pseuds/Jaded
Summary: Post-Scarif, Jyn joins the Rebellion and has the time to think about her feelings toward Cassian. She just didn't realize that upon their miraculous return, he'd have someone waiting for him.Prompt fill: "Cassian is romantically involved with someone else when he meets Jyn."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece to "[The Thought That Drives Me Forward (You)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10384938)."

_We are born to burn,_ she thinks.

 

As Jyn watches the horizon on fire, she thinks _this is how it happens,_ and her arms wrap tighter around Cassian. She thinks of her father’s biology lessons on Lah’mu when she was a child, thinks about cells fusing together and becoming one, and then a miracle sweeps them up into the sky.

 

As they break atmo, their bodies broken but alive, she watches his chest rise and fall with labored breaths and thinks again, _we are born to burn_. She just thought that had meant Scarif.

 

 

+

 

 

She wakes in the medbay on Yavin IV to the smell of cold metal and Bacta and goes immediately to find him. Limping through the corridors, she finds him two rooms down. Cassian’s under heavy sedation, his chest bare except for the heavy bandages where the blaster bolt cut into him, but he’s breathing, and his breaths are not so labored anymore.

 

Jyn collapses in a chair next to him, grabs his hand feverishly. She should not have gotten out of bed, but _Cassian_. _Home_. She strokes his palm with her thumb, and she feels his fingers curl around hers until she is stilled. _An involuntary reflex,_ she thinks as she fades into sleep again.

 

+

 

The med droid beeps at her until she is awake.

 

“You are not authorized,” it tells her, and Jyn thinks it is lucky she’s not armed. She stands and stretches her legs.

 

The door slides open then with a whoosh, and in walks a woman in a flight suit, captain’s insignia bright and polished on her jacket. The captain ignores Jyn and makes a beeline for Cassian. Jyn watches as the woman cups Cassian’s face with her hands, and she feels the sting because her brain is screaming, _you are not allowed._

 

“Thank you,” the captain murmurs, finally turning to her. “You saved him.”

 

Jyn is stiff and does not respond.

 

“I’m Captain Rois.” She thrusts out her hand and releases Cassian. “Khelda.”

 

“Captain,” Jyn says with a nod, not taking her hand. “If you’ll excuse me.”

 

  
The med droid follows Jyn to the door and gives her one last beep. “You are not authorized.”

 

As the doors open and shut behind her, she hears the med droid give Captain Rois a rundown of Cassian’s vitals.

 

“She is authorized,” Jyn whispers to herself as her boots echo down the empty corridor.

 

 

+

 

 

It’s a mistake to ask K-2SO, but she does it anyway.

 

“Cassian and Captain Rois have, as you humans so quaintly call it, ‘an understanding.’” He looks at Jyn with what passes for pity. “I won’t tell Cassian that you asked.”

 

“Good,” she says.

 

 

+

 

 

Jyn stays with Rebellion, and she fights harder than almost anybody. Her missions aren’t always with her Rogue One companions, especially Cassian, and she’s fine with that. The Pathfinders welcome her, and Kes Dameron laughs and tells Princess Leia, “This one has a fire inside of her!”

 

She’s given commendation after commendation and refuses to accept any of them. But she does begin to accept that she’s making a place for herself, even making friends. But is Yavin home? Is the Rebellion home? She watches Cassian in the mess sitting silently across from Captain Rois, who is telling a long story and gesturing with her fork, and Jyn knows the answer.

 

She still burns, and it’s consuming her from the inside out.

 

 

+

 

 

At the fringes of the jungle, she lets Ruescott Melshi kiss her--or rather, she kisses him--but when they break apart they search one another’s face and all they see is an apology and thanks.

 

_Thank you for believing me. Thank you for coming to Scarif._

 

_I’m sorry about the shovel._

 

She prefers if Cassian not ever know about this because she’s not playing a game, not trying to score points or press him one way or another. She’s just trying to live her life. It’s just that she’s still figuring out how.

 

 

+

 

 

Alderaan is destroyed, and Jyn goes into the hanger and sobs silently to herself.

 

 _They were all born to burn_ , she thinks. _They should not have had to_.

 

She doesn’t see Cassian standing in the shadows, unable to bring himself any closer.

 

 

+

 

 

She almost dies. Again. This time on a routine scouting mission.

 

“Why do you do this?” Baze asks her. Chirrut is not far away, listening; knowing.

 

“Do what?” she says carelessly.

 

He gives her a look and that’s answer enough.

 

“We all have something worth living for,” Chirrut says.

 

She turns to the sound of his voice while she slips on her gloves. “Mine’s revenge,” she says.

 

Chirrut laughs and shakes his head, but it is Baze who speaks again.

 

“We live for love, Little Sister. You have it, even if you don’t think you do.”

 

 

+

 

 

The Death Star hovers above Yavin IV: her father’s work; her inheritance. She wonders if the third time's the charm. She’s granted a place in the control room. In more ways than one, they are all where they are now in part because of her.

 

The whole time, she braces herself for the end, but the end doesn’t come. Horror and fear is followed by joy and relief. She slinks away before anyone can speak to her.

 

She “celebrates” by sitting alone in her quarters. She tortures herself by imagining Cassian lifting Captain Rois in his arms in a celebratory kiss, though she’s never seen them do more than touch each other gently in passing. Her kyber pendant burns hot on her skin, but she feels cold inside.

 

 

+

 

 

Not long after, Luke Skywalker finds her as she’s leaving the medical bay after a reapplication of Bacta for her weeping wounds that haven’t quite healed from the blast she took back at Junari Point on Chandrila. Bacta patches peek out from beneath her shirt sleeves and there’s a smear of the gel across her cheek where a blaster had singed her skin.

 

“Jyn Erso!” he says, breathless. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m--”

 

And of course she knows who he is.

 

Everyone knows who he is. The destroyer of the Death Star. The hero of the Rebellion. She thinks of him with no bitterness, no irony. If they were the first leg in the relay, he is the anchor, and he’s come through better than they could have hoped. She’s grateful that he exists; that the stars came together and someone took a breath or turned over a stone so that dust and light somehow came together and he was formed.

 

He follows her down the hall and she thinks how young he seems, though she’s only got a standard year or two on him. She feels the weight of her life on her shoulders, and it makes her bones feel ancient.

 

“--Luke Skywalker. I’ve been wanting to meet you! What you and the rest of Rogue One did on Scarif--I mean, I can’t thank you enough.”

 

Jyn stops mid-step and holds out a hand to stop him. The memories of Scarif pain her more than the physical aches, and she sidesteps reminders whenever she can, which seems almost all the time since they’ve been back on base. But of course, that doesn’t override the physical aches, and one radiates from her bruised shoulder to her elbow, and she stymies a groan. “I think what you did is all the thanks any of us needs. You did what had to be done.”

 

He looks at her, guileless and kind and open, and abstractly, she knows it’s a good face, but it’s Cassian’s face she suddenly sees in her mind instead, unreadable, bruised, weary, and so beautiful that her vision blurs for a moment.

 

“I was wondering if you maybe you’d join me and, ah,” he rubs his blonde hair distractedly in a gesture she reads more than knows as awkward and endearing because her life has been an odd dream of blood and violence and such things as these have been either abstractions or tells used to further her own missions. “If you would join me and some of the rest of Red Squadron for a drink. A celebratory drink.”

 

Almost on cue, a repulsor door halfway down the hallway slides open with a quiet whoosh, and out of it steps Cassian Andor, his face ashen, his arm in a sling, his beard longer than she’s ever seen it. He turns toward her, pauses, and catalogs with his inscrutable face the fact that she is with Skywalker.

 

On instinct, she pitches forward toward him; but then he is gone, disappearing around the corner without a second glance.

 

 

+

 

 

She drinks herself almost into a blackout, the Corellian whiskey burning hot in her throat.

 

Skywalker and Hobbie Klivian half-carry her back to her quarters with a little help from Bodhi, who still has most of his wits about him, but when they leave, she stumbles out into the darkness and falls asleep outside under the stars.

 

 

+

 

 

Cassian finds her.

 

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

 

“You’re an excellent spy,” she says, blinking at the breaking dawn. Jyn wipes the sleep from her eyes and pulls herself up to sit on a flat rock.

 

He kneels down in the dirt next to her and reaches out to brush a leaf out of her hair. She flinches, but it’s not out of disgust--it’s out of fear; out of cowardice.

 

“Jyn.” He presses the hand into her cheek, then reaches up with his other hand to cup the other side of her face.

 

“Don’t,” she says. “It’s . . . too early for this.”

 

A wry smile touches his lips and Cassian gives a faint shake of his head. “Not too early.” He pauses. “I hope . . . that I am not too late?”

 

_(This is how it happens.)_

 

“And Captain Rois?” she asks, the closest that she’ll get to making a confession.

 

“It’s over. It’s been over since the moment you stole my blaster, truthfully. But I had to end it and do right by Khelda. It just took some time.”

 

The memory strikes her, all those months ago, of her searching through his things. “I didn’t find a holo of her in your bag,” Jyn says, an accusation.

 

“I didn’t carry one.”

 

“You’re not sentimental.”

 

He shrugs. “Maybe I am.” Reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, he pulls out a holo and hands it to her. It’s her face--a mugshot, really. Underneath is _Liana Hallik_ spelled out in Aurebesh.

 

“I carried it with me when we were trying to find you.”

 

“And you forgot it was there?”

 

Cassian shakes his head no and looks at her with his dark, sad eyes.

 

The sun rises. Jyn breathes out, her mouth forming into a silent “oh.”

 

His thumb touches her bottom lip, and she realizes that he is waiting for her.

 

She doesn’t keep him that way for long.

 

_(They were born to burn.)_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Wanna find me on tumblr? I'm @operaticspacetrash


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